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Computer simulation and modeling are amazing disciplines. They are used all over the place. Examples include predicting weather (weather models & earth simulations), testing engineering designs (simulating the design and operations), simulating physical phenomena (testing physical, chemical, and biological models before running experiments), and simulating networks to test things such as computer networks or even human networks to study the spread of  diseases (e.g. how will a new flu outbreak spread through the world). In short, simulation is awesome.

So here is the thing, I argue that if you build a big enough model, a big enough computer, and a good enough simulator, you can probably simulate the universe in its entirety. I think this is possible because I currently think that there is no fundamental random process in the universe (i.e. if you can account for everything, you can predict anything). Actually, there is still argument amongst physicists of whether properties in quantum mechanics appear random because of unknown hidden variables (i.e. randomness does not exist) or because there exists something that is fundamentally random in the universe. .. but let’s skip this for now.

Anyway, let’s get to the cool part.

Imagine that we can build a *huge* simulator that can account for everything and predict (read: compute) anything.  This simulator would be able to replay everything from the moment of the big bang, to the formation of Earth, to the rise of human beings, to the conversations you have with your friends, to me typing this post now. Surely this is an amazing simulator.

Now imagine that you have access to this simulator. Not only that, but being the curious person you are, you use it to fast-forward and play events in the future. So the simulator will tell you what events will happen in the future. So you look at the simulator and it will tell you what I will eat tomorrow, what will life look like in the future, where will your children, .. everything. It will tell you everything. Again, this is an awesome possum simulator.

Now the mind-bending part.

If you look at that simulator to see you future, will your future moves happen because you want to do them or because the simulator told you to do them? For example, if the simulator told me to eat pizza tomorrow, will I eat pizza tomorrow because I want to, or because the simulator told me to? Remember, I can’t trick that program because it would have already accounted for me trying to trick it. So the minute you look at your future you don’t know whether you would have acted that way because you wanted to or because the program told you to.

For example, assume you have been a good person all your life, but the simulator told you that you will become a thief. Would that happen because you would have “naturally” became a thief, or because the simulator told you so?

Luckily (and unfortunately) it currently doesn’t look like we can ever build such a simulator because it has to also account for itself as part of the universe, so it has to be as big as itself plus the universe in which it resides (you see the problem).

For the computer scientists in the crowd, would such a simulator be able to solve the halting problem?

… this will really brighten your day (at least it did for me).

The video picture quality is not good, but that is not important.

Figaro … Figaro … Figaro …

Was out shopping (in a mall USA), passed by a sonoma shirt, pleasantly surprised to find the displayed sticker stating that it was made in Jordan … it’s about time

(it is hard to read, but the printout on the shirt says “made in Jordan in the second line after the L)

I have wanted to do this for a while, and now that i am on winter break, i finally did.

So here is the deal: I wanted to create a graphical map of the relationship between all the blogs on Qwaider Planet. More specifically, i wanted to represent each blog with a dot on a map, and draw a line between two blogs if one of them reads the other or links to it. So the end result will be like one of those Internet maps, but localized only for QP.

First, and without further adieu, here is a high-level readership map of all the blogs on QP.

Click on the image for a larger version.

The process was almost entirely automatic. On a high level, i retrieved the most recent posts of all the bloggers via their RSS/Atom feeds. Then iterated over all of them and parsed out comments by other bloggers on QP and the links to them.

Unfortunately it was not that easy. There were many complications that i had to get around. However, i will leave that for another post (or via email to those who might be interested).

Anyway, the picture above of QP as a whole makes sense. There are many bloggers who heavily communicate with many other bloggers; these represent the black blob at the center. Also, there are a few fringe blogs that communicate with less people on QP; these represent the few spikes that only have a few lines (edges) to the other blogs (nodes).

I created a large detailed picture with all the blogs, but it was 90 MB in size, and it crashed the program when i tried to compress it. Here is a link to it if you would like to give it a shot.

I also created a cooler individualized set of graphs of which bloggers read a certain blog, and the relationship between them. So for example, here are a couple of graphs for the blogs that have been recently linked to from my blog and the relationship between them. Again, the edges (lines) represent links.

Click on the images for a larger version.

I also expanded that to show all the blogs that i have had any sort of interaction with. So not only those that are linked to from my blog, but also those on which i had posted a comment on, but i have no recent link or comment from them on my blog.

Click on the image for a larger version.

Finally, i created the readership graphs for many of you!   Check them out, i think they are pretty interesting. Here are the maps for Qwaider and Maioush, Hani, KJ, Garfan, Batoul, Nizar, Jad Madi, 360 East, Black Iris, 7aki Fadi, Hreega, Moey, Kinzi, Mimi Cooks, Jessyz. and Mayyasi. I hope you like them. Again, each graph shows which blogs have recently commented on your blog, and what are the relations between them. If you want your own graph, please let me know and i will generate it and send it to you.

I am not normally a South Park fan. But this latest episode titled “About Last Night …“ (story line here) is just AWESOME! I don’t know how they managed to pull off such an episode with so many correct references to last night’s elections in this short time. It seriously is awesome and the story line is really really cool. Check it out if you can.